


Deleted Scene: What to Expect When You're Expecting

by paladin_cleric_mage



Series: My Heroes Had the Heart [11]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 06:32:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16403123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paladin_cleric_mage/pseuds/paladin_cleric_mage
Summary: June, 1991Corresponds to chapters 69, 70





	Deleted Scene: What to Expect When You're Expecting

“Trauma survivors have an interesting way about them, wouldn’t you say?”

Another dinner with the chief. This time on a Saturday night in June of 1991, at their home in Hawkins.

The meal was fine, but what’s truly thrilling are the baked goods that follow. According to El, she took up baking in fall of ‘86, to mitigate the stress of her first year in a public school. Apparently that year was quite eventful for her; she made friends with other girls and didn’t have to hang around the boys all the time, she broke up with one of said boys to enjoy her freedom and maintain equilibrium among the party, and she finished out the year with no grade lower than a B; English, of course. Makes sense to Owens that her struggle would be analyzing themes and manipulating words to her benefit. Other subjects rely on rote memorization, formulas, or logical concepts applied to abstract thought. El may be a lucid individual, but her strength is in visualization, and parsing problems out, rather than communicating through language. Owens enjoyed spending some of their therapy sessions in '86 reviewing scientific concepts and completing homework.

Now, creating desserts is a pastime for her, not to mention El frequently brings in her sugary creations to the elementary school where she works as a teacher’s aide, primarily with students who need extra support. Her stories about teaching kids like her, whose brains work a bit differently, make Owens’s heart warm. Apparently just last week her math group mastered their multiplication tables. El taught them with manipulatives the teacher didn’t think to use-- multi sided di from Mike’s old Dungeons and Dragons set up.

“An interesting way,” Chief Hopper echoes, across from Owens at the table. “That’s for damn sure.”

Will brightens. “Billy accepted the offer. We’re giving him Billy a room here. Well, a shared room. He’ll stay with me, but he’ll have plenty of space once I go back to school in the fall.”

“You must be excited.”

Doubt flickers across Will’s otherwise porcelain face. “I am, but… What if he doesn’t want to stay? He might want to leave and go back to California.”

“Or die.” El says this so matter of factly, Owens can’t help but laugh.

“That’s certainly an option he’s considered, more than once! Let’s hope he’s not considering it now.”

She smiles, satisfied by her accidental humor. Beside her at the table Joyce cups her steaming mug of tea in both palms. Although it’s June, tea remains a comfort to her. “So, how can we prepare?”

“Well, first we’ll want to childproof the house, so to speak. I suggest all valuables go inside a safe, along with any weapons.” He looks to the chief, whose job requires he carry a gun. “Then we’ll want to discuss interacting with someone experiencing an episode or panic attack, as well as house rules to hold him accountable.”

“Episode?” El asks. “Like TV?”

“Imagine something similar, except inside your head, and you can’t control it. Rather, it takes hard work and dedication, and oftentimes medication, to learn how to properly combat the drama in here.” He taps his temple  

“Combat your own brain,” she clarifies.

“Precisely.”

“I know how that feels,” Will says ruefully. It certainly took a year full of sessions and support for Will’s anxiety to lessen, and his nightmares slow and almost altogether stop.

“Yes, you do. Billy is dealing with borderline personality disorder, plus alcoholism, which is a type of addiction that some consider a subsidiary of the disorder. Between his brain and his upbringing, he has an unstable personality and hypersensitive mood, which morph drastically depending on outside circumstances.”

They stare. He elaborates. “Consider his reaction to Steve.”

“He thought Steve would save his life,” El says, fingertips tracing a leather choker around her neck. Looks like something out of a witches guide.

“Of course. That kind of fantasmatic thinking is in line with both addiction and BPD. It’s codependency, a strong clinging to someone who you believe will change you or your circumstances, providing you with that which no one else has. Or, in Steve’s case, codependency is doing everything you can to save someone who needs you. This is all an unconscious attempt to avoid abandonment. If I do X, this person will do Y, and I’ll be safe, loved, needed, forgiven, secure— any desire can fit into that equation.”

“How did Billy react to Steve?”

“Oh, this is where I was headed.” He pauses for a sip of cola. “Imagine Steve saying or doing something that fails to meet Billy’s irrational expectations of Steve as a boyfriend.”

“We don’t have to imagine,” Will frowns. El and Joyce nod.

“Then you’ll easily understand how, when that vision or fantasy gets distorted, Billy considers himself and what he has in jeopardy. Fear of losing or being hurt immediately transforms into anger, and he explodes, either at himself or others. It’s different across patient samples, but Billy fits the more well known borderline symptoms of volatility and outward explosiveness. Although his main goal is to maintain his relationship with his favorite person, his behavior pushes that person away, in turn feeding his beliefs that he’s a horrible, worthless person, leading him only to cling harder still to the next person who displays affection.”

”Sounds exhausting,” Joyce notes emphatically.

Cheif Hopper adds, “Explains why he wanted to push me away.”

Joyce nods. “The same pattern can play out with addicts, can’t it? I mean, there was a similar dynamic between Lonnie and I, especially when we were drinking or doing—“ she glances at the kids “—other drugs. Love and bliss, then screaming matches and fights. The more I stood up for myself the worse it seemed to get, the more he used. He needed me, but he hated me."

“This can absolutely play out with addicts. Given Billy’s reliance on substances before his incarceration, whether he realized it or not, he would create an even more dangerous concoction for himself and in turn those around him, as we saw with Steve’s murder.”

The chief winces. “He hasn’t been violent or self destructive in years, though. He’s been sober the whole time he’s been locked up.”

Owens raises his eyebrows. "Don't be a fool, Pop. You know as well as I do drugs can be smuggled inside those walls."

"I know," he grunts.

“Has Billy even worked the steps?” When Chief Hopper frowns, Owens nods. “His chances of staying sober after this huge structural change are contingent on whether or not he actively utilizes his program, and whatever other resources are available to him.”

“If he comes home with us he’ll be in meetings, he’ll get a sponsor, and work the steps,” the man insists.

Owens plainly says, “He may not even believe he’s an alcoholic. Sure, he’s supposedly _been_ an alcoholic for six years. Now he’ll be free, the whole world will be different, he’ll consider himself different, and I wouldn’t put it past him to believe he's fine.”

“There’s no way he’ll believe he’s fine,” Will reasons. “He knows himself now.”

“Maybe in there, but what about in the world? Six years in one place, without access to much other than old books and monthly interactions with you gracious people. He’s going to be disoriented, easily overwhelmed, and set off by the littlest things. It’s imperative that he continue medication and therapy as soon as he transitions back into society, and as we’ve discussed, I cannot provide services for him. He isn’t dealing with supernatural trauma, or the loss of a monster fighting friend. His pain is terribly human, and needs to be treated as such.”

Soberly they accept the gravity of their appetite to foster this feral animal. After a moment passes, Owens lifts the group back up. “Are you guys ready to create those house rules and proof this place?”

Optimism returns, and all around the table the family emphatically nods.


End file.
